''Madonna: Truth or Dare
(aka In Bed With Madonna)'' |
Theatrical Release Poster |
| Directed by |
Alek Keshishian |
| Produced by |
Madonna
Tim Clawson
Lisa Hollingshead
Jay Roewe |
| Starring |
Madonna |
| Music by |
Madonna |
| Cinematography |
Christophe Lanzeburg
Robert Leacock
Doug Nichol
Dan Pearl
Toby Phillips
Marc Reshovsky |
| Editing by |
Barry Alexander Brown |
| Studio |
Miramax Films (U.S.)
Metro-Goldwyn Mayer (Europe) |
| Distributed by |
Lionsgate (U.S.)
Dino de Laurentiis Communications (Europe) |
| Release date(s) |
May 10, 1991 (U.S.)
May 15, 1991 (France)
June 20, 1991 (Australia)
26 July 1991 (U.K.)
October 25, 1991 (Spain)
|
| Running time |
122 min. (U.S.)
114 min. (Europe) |
| Country |
United States |
| Language |
English |
| Followed by |
I'm Going to Tell You a Secret (2005) |
Truth or Dare (known as In Bed with Madonna outside North America) is a documentary chronicling the life of American singer-songwriter Madonna during her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour. Released in 1991, the film was generally well-received by critics and was successful at the box office, becoming the sixth-highest grossing documentary of all time (as of 2006) with a worldwide gross of $29 million. It was screened out of competition at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival.[1]
History
The title of the documentary is in reference to the party game Truth or Dare?. Outside North America the documentary title was changed by Miramax Films to In Bed with Madonna, due to the game being relatively unknown in other countries. Madonna has commented in various interviews that she hates the title of In Bed With Madonna and has expressed it as "stupid". The original working title of the documentary was "Truth or Dare: On the Road, Behind the Scenes and In Bed with Madonna".
During the summer of 1990, Madonna hired director Alek Keshishian, to film backstage and onstage footage of her Blond Ambition World Tour. The entire documentary is filmed in Black-and-white, except for onstage sequences which are in full color. There are appearances from celebrities such as Olivia Newton-John, Antonio Banderas, Sandra Bernhard, Kevin Costner and Warren Beatty, whom she was dating at the time.
Concert video footage was shot at Bercy in Paris, France in July 1990. In the "Express Yourself" concert sequence, Madonna says "All right, America! Do you believe in love?" This audio is overdubbed from a US date onto footage shot in Paris, where she does not wear the ponytail as in the Japan and USA stops.
Plot
Truth or Dare actually begins on August 6, 1990, the day after the final show of the Blond Ambition Tour in Nice. Madonna is seen cleaning up her hotel room while, in a voice-over, she explains that she is not nearly as emotional as the rest of her group over the end of the tour. She's already grieved, she says, but it will all hit her at a later date, and she hopes she'll be in a safe place when it happens.
A flashback occurs, and it is April 1990; the tour is about to kick off in Japan. Everything is a mess, however - there are sound problems, and Madonna somehow failed to realize that the tour is during the rainy season in Japan. The show goes on as scheduled, but because it is so cold and wet (like a New York blizzard, Madonna compares), the dancers have to scrap their costumes for warmer attire. Madonna, in a retrospective voice-over, confesses that the only thing keeping her from "slashing my wrists" was the thought of returning to North America and performing the show as it was meant to be.
In America, Madonna is able to meet the families of her dancers, who have become like children to her. One dancer in particular, Oliver, meets with his father for the first time in several years, while Madonna talks with her father, Silvio "Tony" Ciccone, on the phone. Though she insists that she can get him tickets any night of the week, he is reluctant to impose on his daughter, still seemingly unaccustomed to her fame. It is one of the many unexpectedly human moments that occur during the film, and probably a major reason the film was so well-received, even by those who found Madonna herself to be grasping and shallow.
The Blond Ambition Tour stops next in Los Angeles, where sound problems abound. Despite reassurances that her performance was top-notch, Madonna can only focus on the technical problems and yells at her manager, Freddy DeMann, for allowing so many people from the music industry, who appeared bored by her performance, in the front rows. As she rants, then-boyfriend Warren Beatty smiles to himself. Though he eventually tries to console her, he is distracted by the cameras, and walks away laughing.
Backstage, Madonna parties with several celebrities, including Dick Tracy co-stars Al Pacino and Mandy Patinkin, and fellow singer Olivia Newton-John. Kevin Costner also appears backstage and deeply offends Madonna by referring to her show as "neat". Disgusted, Madonna stuffs a finger down her throat and pretends to gag after he leaves. Meanwhile, despite the lively atmosphere, Warren still seems to be bothered by the cameras' presence.
During her stay in Washington, D.C., Madonna attends the premiere of Dick Tracy with Warren Beatty, with whom she co-starred. In another voice-over, she describes a dream that she had the night before: Mikhail Gorbachev came to see her show, and she thought of how jealous Warren Beatty would be that she met him first. She ultimately declares it to be "a good dream".
On the final night of the show in Toronto (May 29), Madonna is informed that plainclothes officers saw the previous day's performance, and they are prepared to arrest her if she goes through with the simulated masturbation scene at the end of "Like a Virgin". Madonna refuses to change her show, telling Donna and Niki, "Last time I was on tour, Sean was in jail. I guess it's my turn." Freddy DeMann bets that the threat of arrest will only make Madonna go further, and no one is willing to take his bet. Eventually, according to a news report, Toronto police decided not to arrest the singer, claiming to the media that no such threats had ever occurred.
Promotional poster for the international release known as
In Bed with Madonna.
After Toronto, the Blond Ambition Tour goes to Madonna's hometown of Detroit. In a voice-over, Madonna expresses the difficulty she has going back home, especially since fame seems to change one's loved ones. At the end of "Holiday", Madonna calls her father on stage and sings "Happy Birthday to You" to him. Backstage, Tony and his wife, Joan, compliment Madonna (and Christopher) on their work on the show, though Tony expresses his displeasure at some of the more "burlesque" aspects of the concert, to which Madonna answers with a child-like "Dad!".
After the show, Madonna and Christopher wait for their older brother, Martin to show up, and discuss his alcohol and drug problems while they wait. By the time he shows up, Christopher has left and Madonna has gone to bed. While in Detroit, Madonna also reunites with her "childhood idol", Moira McFarland-Messana, who, among other things, "... taught me how to use a tampon - not very well, I might add." During their meeting, Moira gives Madonna a painting she had made, entitled "Madonna and Child", and asks Madonna to be the godmother to her unborn child, whom they both hope to be a girl after four boys.
Before leaving Detroit, Madonna visits her mother's grave as "Promise to Try" plays in the background. She explains that it's the first time she's visited her mother's grave since she was a little girl, and describes her mother, who died of breast cancer when Madonna was five, as being "like an angel" and very religious, and remembers thinking that she must have done something to merit her mother being taken away. Madonna lies down beside her mother's grave as Christopher watches, leaning against a tree, and Madonna whispers that, "I'm going to fit in right here. They're going to bury me sideways."
As the tour continues, Madonna's throat problems worsen while Warren becomes more fed up with the cameras. During a throat examination in Madonna's hotel room, with the cameras still rolling, Warren chastises her for the documentary, telling her that the atmosphere is driving everyone insane, even if no one verbalizes it. Madonna ignores Warren, and when Madonna declines to have the rest of her examination done off camera, Warren starts to laugh, saying, "She doesn't want to live off-camera, much less talk... What point is there of existing off-camera?"
Teaser poster for the North American release known as
Truth or Dare.
Due to Madonna's throat problems, she is forced to cancel some of her shows. In New York, Madonna's doctor instructs her not to talk, and she finds herself isolated in her apartment with only her assistant, Melissa, as contact to the outside world. Everything seems to fall apart as a result, and she loses contact with the dancers. Things worsen when Star reports that Madonna has dumped Warren Beatty for one of her dancers, Oliver Crumes. The other dancers torment him as a result, and Madonna is forced to go into maternal mode and chastises them. Tensions increase when Sharon, one of the make-up artists, is drugged and sodomized while out partying. In a prayer circle before the final show in New York, an AIDS benefit in memory of Keith Haring, Madonna attempts to pull everyone back together; it is one of the few scenes in the movie where she is seen crying.
The third leg of the tour kicks off in Europe with everyone in much better spirits. Madonna and the dancers visit Chanel in Paris, fool around at Melissa's birthday party (Madonna reads a humorous but loving poem to her assistant), and imitate Madonna's 1984 "Like a Virgin" music video. The mood crashes, however, as the tour nears Italy, where the Pope is attempting to have the Blond Ambition Tour banned. Despite a press conference, Madonna is forced to cancel two shows as a result.
Best friend and comedienne Sandra Bernhard appears to cheer up Madonna, who is becoming bored with partying solely with her dancers. Sandra asks who would really blow her away, and, after a while, Madonna answers, "That guy who's in all of Pedro Almodóvar's films - Antonio Banderas." When Almodóvar throws a party in Madrid and invites the future Evita co-stars, Madonna is thrilled, and spends a whole week thinking up ways to seduce Banderas and make him hers. Unfortunately, it turns out that Antonio is married, bringing Madonna's two-year crush to a disappointing end.
While Madonna works in her hotel room, voice-overs from her family, friends, and co-workers candidly describe the star. Though she's happier now than she was on her last tour, Sandra Bernhard doesn't think that she takes enough time to enjoy her successes, instead worrying about technical mistakes. Others describe her as "difficult to reach" and untrusting of many, as well as "impatient", "often unhappy", and "sometimes a bitch". Donna De Lory says, "I just feel like she's a little girl lost in the storm sometimes. You know, there's just a whole whirlwind of things going on around her, and sometimes she gets caught up in it."
As the tour winds down, the group decides to play a game of Truth or Dare?. One dancer is dared to expose his penis on the patio, while two more are dared to French kiss each other. Madonna is dared to simulate oral sex on a glass water bottle, which she does with gusto. She is later asked "Who has been the love of your life for your whole life? Your biggest love", to which Madonna replies without hesitation, "Sean. Sean."
Later, Madonna invites each of her dancers, one-by-one, to join her in her bed, where she imparts some words of wisdom to each while heavily goofing off. At the end of the segment, all of the dancers join her, and they goof off for the camera.
While the show's closing act, "Keep It Together", plays, a montage of Madonna saying good-bye to all of her teary-eyed dancers is shown. The film ends, after the credits, with a clip of Madonna, hair in her outrageous Blond Ambition ponytail, telling director Alek Keshishian to go away and, "Cut it, Alek! Cut it, God dammit!"
During the documentary, an abbreviated, studio-dubbed performance of "Express Yourself" is shown, along with the full versions of "Oh Father" and "Like a Virgin", a short clip of "Like a Prayer", an abbreviated performance of "Holiday", the full version of "Live to Tell", a "Vogue" montage with black-and-white scenes, excerpts from "Causing a Commotion", and an abbreviated version of "Keep It Together" with black-and-white scenes of Madonna saying good-bye to her dancers at the end, in that order.
Promotional videos
The live versions of "Like a Virgin" and "Holiday" were released as music videos on MTV to promote the film.
To promote the just-released film, Madonna made a guest appearance in a pre-filmed segment on the May 11, 1991 episode of the sketch-comedy show Saturday Night Live.
During a Wayne's World sketch, Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) encounter a seductive Madonna laying on a bed in a hotel room during a dream fantasy sequence (filmed in black and white). After some back-and-forth banter, Wayne and Madonna play Truth or Dare. Wayne dares Madonna to make out with him. As they kiss, the music for her controversial 1990 video Justify My Love begins to play. Garth is then seen dancing in a parody of the video before being abducted by two women in fetish-wear outfits.
Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful is afilm starring comedienne Julie Brown as the title character, with Kathy Griffin and Donal Logue in supporting roles.
The film lampoons the legitimate documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare (also known as In Bed With Madonna outside the United States and Canada). In this spoof, Brown plays Medusa, a controlling, hyper-sexual blonde bombshell who has allowed a documentary crew to follow her on her "Blonde Leading the Blonde Tour."
The film, about one hour long and originally produced as a Showtime television special, goes to great pains to recreate costumes, sets and situations that occurred in the original documentary.
In addition, the popular British television comedy programme "French & Saunders" did a highly-regarded parody of the film with both stars playing Madonna in tandem - a unique conceit - which was called "In Bed With French & Saunders." Madonna herself was widely reported to be delighted with the long skit, saying that when French & Saunders did a parody of anything, it was proof that it had "arrived."
Lawsuit
On January 21, 1992, three of the Blond Ambition dancers - Oliver Crumes, Kevin Stea, and Gabriel Trupin, filed a lawsuit against Madonna. The suit claimed that the singer had invaded her dancers' privacy during the filming of Truth or Dare, as well as charging her with fraud and deceit, intentional misrepresentation, suppression of fact, and intentional infliction of emotional distress for displaying the men's private lives in the documentary.
In a commercial for MTV's Rock the Vote campaign later that year, Madonna joked about the lawsuit, saying, "You're probably thinking that's not a very good reason to vote... So sue me! Everybody else does."
Video release
| Truth or Dare (aka In Bed With Madonna) |
 |
| Video by Madonna |
| Released |
October 7, 1991 (U.K.)
October 9, 1991 (U.S.)
August 27, 1997 (U.S.) (DVD)
January 6, 2003 (Worldwide) (DVD) |
| Recorded |
1990 |
| Genre |
Documentary/Live |
| Length |
122 mins
114 mins (U.K. 15 VHS)
133 mins (U.S. 1992 VHS re-release) |
| Label |
Lionsgate (U.S.)
Video Collection (U.K.)
MCA Home Video (Canada)
MGM (Worldwide DVD) |
| Madonna video chronology |
|
|
The music video release of the documentary Truth or Dare was released on October 9, 1991 by LIVE Entertainment in North America. In Bed with Madonna was released in the UK by Video Collection International on October 7, 1991.
Formats
It was released on VHS, VCD (Asia only), Laserdisc and later DVD. The LaserDisc, in keeping with the strengths of the format, was considered the "ne plus ultra" in terms of quality, although the quick demise (and sheer expense) of the format prevented it from being fully appreciated by the general public. In the UK an additional VHS "15" certificate, edited version was released in November, 1991, to allow younger teenagers to watch it. The packaging was slightly changed to a 'blue' format otherwise identical to the original. The VHS was re-released in the U.S. on July 15, 1992 with two additional performances of "Hanky Panky" and "Like a Prayer" included after the credits. These performances were only available on this version.
The DVD version was released on August 27, 1997 by LIVE Entertainment in North America and included the extras; Original Theatrical Trailer, Production Notes and Cast & Crew biographies. It did not get a worldwide DVD release until January 6, 2003 by MGM Entertainment and included just one extra, Original Theatrical Trailer.
In March 2009, a new HD master of the film premiered on Palladia HD (MTV's new name). It included the new Miramax logo at the beginning of the film; meaning that the rights have reverted to Miramax instead of Lionsgate and MGM.
Track listing
Concert footage includes:
plus excerpts from:
US Special Edition VHS includes the performances of:
See also
References
External links
